1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a photographing apparatus and a photographing system, and more particularly to a photographing apparatus capable of photographing a desired object cooperatively with a plurality of photographing apparatuses, a photographing system using the photographing apparatus and a photographing method in the photographing system.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, photographing apparatuses such as digital cameras, video cameras and the like have been generally put into practical use and widely spread. Such photographing apparatuses are capable of sequentially converting an optical image formed by a photographing optical system into an image signal using a photoelectric conversion device such as a solid-state image pickup device, and capable of storing the image signal acquired by the conversion as image data in a predetermined form in a memory medium, and configured by including an image display device such as a liquid crystal display (LCD) device on which the image data stored in the memory medium is reproduced and displayed as an image.
Such a type of photographing apparatuses have a feature in that various image processings are easily performed by performing various signal processings on the acquired image data. Therefore, by taking advantage of such a feature, the above-described type of photographing apparatuses are capable of easily acquiring intended images depending on various photographing scenes which have been difficult to be photographed by conventional photographing methods.
For example, it is possible to perform what is called a multi-screen photographing in which a plurality of images are combined based on a plurality of image data acquired by photographing using such photographing apparatuses to generate a single image, or it is possible to generate image data in various forms by using a plurality of image data acquired by a plurality of photographing apparatuses.
On the other hand, conventional photographing apparatuses are usually used such that one photographer performs photographing by using a single photographing apparatus in an ordinary case. The image data acquired in this case represents a predetermined range including a desired object located at a position toward which the photographing apparatus faces, as one still image or one moving image.
However, when a moving image data acquired by a moving image photographing is reproduced and displayed, in particular, if the moving image is taken from one viewpoint, the video is likely to be monotonous because there is no switching of screens.
Therefore, conventionally, a plurality of people have performed photographing by respectively using a plurality of photographing apparatuses to acquire a plurality of moving image data, and thereafter have transferred the plurality of moving image data to an image editing apparatus, for example, and moving image data including switching of screens have been generated by performing data editing work using the image editing apparatus.
However, in such a conventional method, the photographing operation itself has been an extensive work, and in addition, a cumbersome data editing work has been required. Therefore, it has been difficult for an average photographer to perform such a photographing.
In order to address such a problem, various techniques have been conventionally proposed. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2007-173963 discloses a technique of enabling a plurality of photographing apparatuses to cooperate with one another by using a communication function, to thereby easily generate moving image data for allowing a wide variety of reproduction and display by easy and smooth switching among a plurality of viewpoints, regardless of a photographing skill of a photographer.
In addition, the photographing apparatus disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2007-173963 generates one moving image data by what is called a multi-angle photographing in which a series of actions having one temporal flow (a footrace in an athletic meet, for example) is photographed by a plurality of photographing apparatuses in a shared manner by making the plurality of photographing apparatuses cooperative with one another, and a plurality of moving image data acquired by the respective photographing apparatuses are transferred to one photographing apparatus, and thereafter the plurality of moving image data are joined together and edited according to the temporal flow and a series of actions as a photographing target is stored from a plurality of viewpoints.